Today it's the 100th anniversary of Charlie Christian's birthday. For a special 2h30m programme we've done (in Spanish) in El Club de Jazz, I've spent the last few months re-visiting his complete output (except for a very few items, such as Bill Savory's airchecks housed at the National Jazz Museum in Harlem). My playlist tells me that it's 239 tracks long—about 13 hours straight—including the ones where Christian's presumed to play with Benny Goodman's orchestra. On top of that, I've listened to other guitar players (Bus Etri doing "Flying Home" in 1940, anyone?), plus a generous helping of string music from Texas and Oklahoma also known as Western Swing.
 |
| Charlie Christian at the Metronome All-Star session February 7, 1940. Courtesy of Leo Valdés. |
Because it is unavoidable that some of the same old stories will be regurgitated for the centennial, I've jotted down a few notes about CC:
